colleen weems

Welcome to the not-too-distant future. Babies born in the year 2000 have been released into the world as adults. Fresh out of a relationship and her college apartment, Flossie O’Brien relocates from Chicago to San Francisco, just in time to witness social media meet its demise at the hands of trendsetters who have traded their shallow online connections for small and exclusive social pods.

Perfectly attractive, high-functioning people like Flossie are left adrift and floundering in a foreign social landscape. Isolated in her home office and inexperienced at forging technology-free relationships, young professional Flossie faces her loneliness head-on and creates an imaginary friend.

Sophisticated, bold, and one hundred percent imaginary Olivia establishes herself as Flossie’s tough-love bestie, and helps Flossie find her footing and some much-needed joy. Risking her burgeoning career and her sanity, Flossie reluctantly offers her secret to happiness to help other social refugees, unintentionally seeding an eclectic community of misfits and their imaginary friends–the IFs.

Friendship, love, jealousy, real arson, and unreal homicide ensue, and Flossie soon finds that even imaginary friends aren’t without their baggage.

The IFs is a fun and quirky novel that takes a look at the not-always-fun state of modern relationships - friends, romantic partners, families, co-workers, even our communities. The IFs also asks the question, what happens if technology disappeared from our relationships - would we wither or thrive?